Dear Participants of the 2020 ACA Summer Course
It is with great sadness that we have to announce that we will have to cancel this year’s ACA Summer Course in Chemical Crystallography. The planned dates for the Course, May 31st to June 7th, are drawing closer and closer, and we have been informed by the University that all events with outside participation or with more than 50 participants are cancelled until including May 31st. As this is the first day of our event, the ACA Summer Course falls under that order and has been canceled.
We had been considering pushing back the starting date or postponing the Course. The latest the Course could have been held this Summer would have been late July to early August. However, there is no short or medium-term solution for the COVID-19 crisis in sight. While stay at home orders might be gradually lifted coming July or August, social distancing will likely to stay in place for the foreseeable future (i.e. until a vaccine or treatment has been developed). With this in mind we decided against trying to move the dates for the 2020 Course. We will instead meet again for the next regular scheduled Course in the Summer of 2021.
We know that many of you looked very much forward to the Course, and we understand your disappointment. We, the organizers of the Course and the teaching faculty, feel exactly the same. Most of us have been very strongly committed to the course for years or even decades, and the Course is one of the highlights of the year for all of us. If your schedule allows, and if crystallography remains an important part of your future plans, we would love to see you at the 2021 Course instead. Registration will tentatively open on January 1st, 2021.
If you have organized your own accommodation or travel arrangements, please do not forget to cancel hotel, flights, bus tickets, etc.
Please also visit https://acasummercourse.net/news/ towards the end of the year for other news and updates.
Please contact us if you have any questions, or if there is anything we can help with
For the organizers,
Matt Zeller, Christos Malliakas, Charlotte Stern, Allen Oliver
